Physioland – A serious game for physical rehabilitation of patients with neurological diseases

• Autor(a) principal: Martins, Tiago
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Carvalho, Vitor, Soares, Filomena
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/11110/1874
• topic: Serious game; Physical rehabilitation; Computer vision; Neurological diseases; Motivation

Objective: Being aware that serious games can be an interesting and appealing tool, the objective of this paper is to present the Physioland, a serious game based on image processing techniques, developed to monitor the physical therapy practice of patients with reduced mobility as a consequence of neurological disease. Materials and Methods: Several tests were performed in a clinical environment. The system stores every second the data relative to alignment, compensation and speed of the patient while he/she performs each exercise. The sample consisted of eleven elements aged from 17 years to 83 years, with neurological diseases in a mild or moderate state, with sequelae such as hemiparesis, paraparesis, hemidystonia, cerebellar syndrome and hemihyposthesia. Each patient used the game in twice a week in sessions of physical therapy, with the duration of about thirty minutes, for twelve to fifteen sessions. In each session, the patient performed several challenges, for two and a half minutes or five minutes each, according to his/her physiotherapeutic plan. Results: All the patients suffered oscillations in their behavior, but with better or worse performances, higher or lower scores, they were able to successfully complete the different exercises provided by Physioland, which are part of their physiotherapeutic plans. Conclusion: Based on the results obtained it can be said that it was possible to adapt specific exercises of traditional physical therapy to situations of electronic game, reason why Physioland fulfills the objective of monitoring the practice of physical therapy of patients with reduced mobility as a consequence of neurological disease.